This Refrigerator Garlic Dill Pickle recipe is so incredibly easy and fast to make! With just a few basic ingredients, you’ll have these dill pickles packed in jars and in the fridge in just 15 minutes. No canning equipment needed!

Up until around this time last year, you wouldn’t have ever seen me eating dill pickles. Actually, no pickles of any kind!

I picked around them my entire life. And I sat in awe watching my college roommate eat them directly from the jar and drinking the dill pickle juice. Or rather, shaking my head in bewilderment probably better describes it!

And then, as if a switch flipped, I fell head over heels for them. I guess it started with the homemade refrigerator pickles I made last summer. I made them for Kyle, tried one here and there – how could I not try what I grew in my garden and made with my own hands?? – and I soon found myself adding them to sandwiches and burgers, and munching on them…from the jar! 

Then there was also this pickle dip earlier this summer which sort of sealed the deal towards my pickle love.

Last summer, I kind of threw my pickle recipe together from a few different recipes so I couldn’t recreate it if I tried, but these garlic dill pickles are just as stellar as my recipe was.

Ingredients for Refrigerator Pickles

• Fresh dill
• Fresh garlic cloves
• Medium or large cucumbers
• Water
• Distilled white vinegar
• Kosher salt
• Whole mustard seeds (optional)
• Whole black peppercorns (optional)

What Cucumbers Are Best for Pickles?

Crisp and super fresh cucumbers are key to great pickles so make sure you use them as soon as you bring them home from the store or farmers market. If you grow them in your own garden or have a CSA delivery, make this recipe within a day or two of picking or the delivery. 

If you can find cucumbers labeled as “pickling cucumbers” or “mini cucumbers”, these would be the best kind to use. They are about 6 inches long and are usually sold in packages of 5 to 8 in the grocery store.

Larger American cucumbers will work too but you’ll need to really cut them down in order to fit them into the jars. American cucumbers have waxy skins and are NOT the long skinny cucumbers that are wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.

How to Make Dill Pickles

The process to make dill pickles is so ridiculously easy, you won’t believe it! 

STEP 1: Add some fresh dill and garlic to clean mason jars.

STEP 2: Pack the cut cucumbers into the jars.

STEP 3: Make the pickling liquid with water, vinegar, salt, whole mustard seeds, and whole peppercorns. Pour the liquid into the jars, almost up to the top of the jars. Cover the jars with the lids.

STEP 4: Place the jars in the fridge for at least 2 days before eating.

You can eat these pickles within a few days of making them but they’ll be better the longer they sit in their briny juice. 

And since I’ve got a few more cucumbers happening in my garden (like 20?), I’d say there are more of these pickles in our future.